The
populist revolt against governing elites sweeping advanced democracies is the
latest chapter in the oldest political story. Every society, regardless of its
form of government, has a ruling class. The crucial question is whether elites
rule in their own interest or for the common good.

In the
decades after World War II, the ruling classes in Western Europe and the U.S.
managed their economies and social policies in ways that improved the
well-being of the overwhelming majority of their citizens. In return, citizens
accorded elites a measure of deference. Trust in government was high.

These
ruling classes weren’t filled by the traditional aristocracy, and only partly
by the wealthy. As time passed, educated professionals assumed the leading
role. Many came from relatively humble backgrounds, but they attended the best
schools and formed enduring networks with fellow students.

Some
were economists, others specialists in public policy and administration, still
others scientists whose contributions to the war effort translated into
peacetime prestige. Many were lawyers able to train their honed analytical
powers on governance. They were, in a term coined in the late 1950s, the
“meritocracy.”

In some
human endeavors, meritocratic claims are largely unproblematic. In sports, we
celebrate the excellence of those who win. In the sciences, peer review
identifies accomplishment; most people in each specialty can name the handful
of individuals likely to win the Nobel Prize.

Politics,
especially in democracies, is more complicated. Democratic equality stands in
tension with hierarchical claims of every type, including merit. In a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson characterized elections as the best
way of elevating the “natural aristoi” into positions of authority. He had in
mind people like himself, liberally educated and trained in the subtle art of
governance.

This
view didn’t survive the 1820s, when Andrew Jackson led a popular revolt against
it. Alleging that a “corrupt bargain” among elites had cheated him out of the
presidency in 1824, he swept to a victory in 1828 that he portrayed as a
triumph for the common man—farmers, craftsmen, sturdy pioneers—against the
moneyed interests. Ever since, the trope of the virtuous people against the
self-dealing elites has endured in American politics.

Yet
this is more than an American story. In democracies, meritocracy will always be
on the defensive. Its legitimacy will always depend on its performance—its
ability to provide physical security and broadly shared prosperity, as well as
to conduct foreign policy and armed conflict successfully. When it fails to
deliver, all bets are off.

This is
what has happened throughout the West. Failed wars, domestic insecurity and
uneven growth have undermined the authority of governing elites. Although the
pro-Brexit vote in the U.K. came as a shock, it was the latest in a series of surprises
tending in the same direction.

Among
these surprises was the outcome of last year’s Polish election, which replaced
a government led by the center-right Civic Platform Party with the
populist-nationalist Law and Justice Party. During the past decade, Poland’s
economy had grown twice as fast as any other member of the European Union. But
as Henry Foy points out in the American Interest, the
gains were concentrated in Poland’s largest cities, while other areas lagged.
The postcommunist market economy, he observes, “eroded traditional ways of life
without adequate recompense.”

Unequal
growth triggers cultural resentment. “We only want to cure our country of a few
illnesses,” the new Polish foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, told a
German newspaper in January. Most Poles, he said, are moved by “tradition,
historical awareness, love of country, faith in God, and a normal family life
between a woman and a man.” But the previous government acted “as if the world,
in a Marxist fashion, were destined to evolve only in one direction—towards a
new mix of cultures and races, a world of bicyclists and vegetarians, who only
use renewable energy and who battle all signs of religion.”

The new
meritocrats, then, are exposed to cultural as well as economic resentment.
Education prepares them to surge ahead in the knowledge economy, leaving
industrial and rural areas behind. But it also inclines them to question
traditional values and welcome cultural diversity. Educated classes are less
moved by particularist appeals to ethnic and national identity and more by
internationalism and universal norms. Many identify more with elites abroad
than with their own less-educated, less-prosperous countrymen.

Similar
divisions are evident throughout the West. Depending on the balance of forces,
political outcomes vary from one country to the next. But the terms of the
struggle are much the same. And so are the dangers, not least to democracy.